Springfield Concert Hall

This essay focuses on The Simpsons as a means of illustrating the peculiar problems of the current practice of architecture. The show offers a cartoon version of current practice of architecture marked by spectacle and commodification. As the first architect to appear in a Simpsons' episode, Frank Gehry builds a concert hall in Springfield. The Concert Hall provides a vivid and absurdly tragic example of the problematic consequences of Gehry's architecture. Exemplified by the scenes in the episode, this paper discusses some of the conditions driving the language of contemporary architecture.